It seems like mass social manipulation leading to control. Instill terror and fear into their hearts enough and they will beg for a police state and martial law against anyone who resists.
I think the government is complicit in some of the terror and other acts that cause fear (like ANTIFA rioters in the streets) or they are simply complacent in allowing it to happen so that they can blow it up in the media then propose more "regulations" to "fix" the problem. It is classic Hegelian dialectic: problem, reaction, solution.
It really sucks that private business want to impose more regulations on themselves but they could have been manipulated into those decisions.